Bryce Seligman DeWitt (January 8, 1923 – September 23, 2004), was an American

theoretical physicist Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experime ...

noted for his work in gravitation and quantum field theory.

Life

He was born Carl Bryce Seligman, but he and his three brothers, including the noted ichthyologist

Hugh Hamilton DeWitt Hugh Hamilton DeWitt (28 December 1933-5 January 1995) was an American ichthyologist, marine biologist and oceanographer. DeWitt was born on 28 December 1933 in San Jose, California, son of Carl Bryce Seligman, a country doctor, and Honor Pettit ...

, added "DeWitt" from their mother's side of the family, at the urging of their father, in 1950. In the early-1970s, this change of name so angered

Felix Bloch Felix Bloch (23 October 1905 – 10 September 1983) was a Swiss-American physicist and Nobel physics laureate who worked mainly in the U.S. He and Edward Mills Purcell were awarded the 1952 Nobel Prize for Physics for "their development of new ...

that he blocked DeWitt's appointment to Stanford University and DeWitt and his wife Cecile DeWitt-Morette, a mathematical physicist, accepted faculty positions at the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,07 ...

. DeWitt served in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

as a naval aviator. He died September 23, 2004 from pancreatic cancer at the age of 81. He is buried in France, and was survived by his wife and four daughters.

Work

He pioneered work in the quantization of

general relativity General relativity, also known as the general theory of relativity and Einstein's theory of gravity, is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915 and is the current description of gravitation in modern physics ...

and, in particular, developed

canonical quantum gravity In physics, canonical quantum gravity is an attempt to quantize the canonical formulation of general relativity (or canonical gravity). It is a Hamiltonian formulation of Einstein's general theory of relativity. The basic theory was outlined by ...

, manifestly covariant methods, and heat kernel algorithms. DeWitt formulated the

Wheeler–DeWitt equation The Wheeler–DeWitt equation for theoretical physics and applied mathematics, is a field equation attributed to John Archibald Wheeler and Bryce DeWitt. The equation attempts to mathematically combine the ideas of quantum mechanics and general ...

for the wave function of the universe with

John Archibald Wheeler John Archibald Wheeler (July 9, 1911April 13, 2008) was an American theoretical physicist. He was largely responsible for reviving interest in general relativity in the United States after World War II. Wheeler also worked with Niels Bohr in ...

and advanced the formulation of

Hugh Everett Hugh Everett III (; November 11, 1930 – July 19, 1982) was an American physicist who first proposed the many-worlds interpretation (MWI) of quantum physics, which he termed his "relative state" formulation. In contrast to the then-dominant Cope ...

's many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. With his student

Larry Smarr Larry Lee Smarr is a physicist and leader in scientific computing, supercomputer applications, and Internet infrastructure from Missouri. He currently works at the University of California, San Diego. Smarr has been among the most important synth ...

, he originated the field of

numerical relativity Numerical relativity is one of the branches of general relativity that uses numerical methods and algorithms to solve and analyze problems. To this end, supercomputers are often employed to study black holes, gravitational waves, neutron stars a ...

. He received his bachelor's (summa cum laude), master's and doctoral degrees from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

. His Ph.D. (1950) supervisor was Julian S. Schwinger. Afterwards, he held a postdoctoral position at the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent schola ...

, in Princeton, NJ, worked at the Lawrence Livermore Lab, and then held faculty positions at the

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States ...

and, later, the

. He was awarded the

Dirac Prize Distributed Research using Advanced Computing (DiRAC) is an integrated supercomputing facility used for research in particle physics, astronomy and cosmology in the United Kingdom. DiRAC makes use of multi-core processors and provides a variety of ...

in 1987, the

Pomeranchuk Prize The Pomeranchuk Prize is an international award for theoretical physics, awarded annually since 1998 by the Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics (ITEP) from Moscow. It is named after Russian physicist Isaak Yakovlevich Pomeranchuk, wh ...

in 2002, and the American Physical Society's Einstein Prize posthumously in 2005, and was a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Books

* Bryce DeWitt, ''Dynamical theory of groups and fields'',

Gordon and Breach Taylor & Francis Group is an international company originating in England that publishes books and academic journals. Its parts include Taylor & Francis, Routledge, F1000 Research or Dovepress. It is a division of Informa plc, a United Ki ...

, New York, 1965 * Bryce DeWitt, R. Neill Graham, eds., ''The Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics'', Princeton Series in Physics,

Princeton University Press Princeton University Press is an independent publisher with close connections to Princeton University. Its mission is to disseminate scholarship within academia and society at large. The press was founded by Whitney Darrow, with the financia ...

(1973), . * S. M. Christensen, ed., ''Quantum theory of gravity. Essays in honor of the 60th birthday of Bryce S. DeWitt'', Adam Hilger, Bristol, 1984. * Bryce DeWitt, ''Supermanifolds'', Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1985. * Bryce DeWitt, ''The Global Approach to Quantum Field Theory'', The International Series of Monographs on Physics,

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

, 2003, . * Bryce DeWitt, ''Sopra un raggio di luce'', Di Renzo Editore, Roma, 2005. * Bryce DeWitt, ''Bryce DeWitt's Lectures on Gravitation'', Steven M. Christensen, ed., Springer, 2011.

References

External links

University of Texas obituary

INSPIRE-HEP list of Dewitt's most famous papers

International Centre for Theoretical Physics The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) is an international research institute for physical and mathematical sciences that operates under a tripartite agreement between the Italian Government, United Nations Educatio ...

Einstein Prize citation
American Physical Society
Oral history interview transcript with Bryce DeWitt and Cecile DeWitt-Morette on February 28 1995, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library & Archives

Gaina Alex: The Quantum Gravity Simposim in Moscow, 1987
Gaina Alex: ГОСТИННАЯ:ФОРУМ: Александр Александров *Сборник рассказов*:РЕПРЕССИРОВАННАЯ НАУКА (PURGED SCIENCE)
Steven Weinberg, "Bryce Seligman Dewitt", Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences (2008)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dewitt, Bryce 1923 births 2004 deaths Harvard University alumni Deaths from pancreatic cancer 20th-century American physicists American relativity theorists Fellows of the American Physical Society University of Texas at Austin faculty Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Jewish physicists Deaths from cancer in Texas

Life

Work

Books

References

Further reading

External links